choosing faith
This past week and a half has been a wonderful chance to experience both the German and Turkish cultures here is Duisberg. Our team is great and a pleasure to serve with. So when I say that this trip has been harder then many others in is not in a negative sense. I would come again in a moment and am thankful for the many relationships that we have begun. The thing that has made this trip harder in many ways is that is has been less concrete then other experiences I have been a part of. There is no house that has been build, no clothes given to those without and no preaching in the town square. This trip has been more about taking our first baby steps.
The challenge has been to come into a foreign culture where the faith of Christianity is not at the foundation of the world we are living and moving in. This is the first time I have been in a place where the people around me to be alive means that they are likely Muslim. Therefore I vision from the start has been to foster relationships and encourage those who live here to express the love of Christ through their ongoing ministry. This was not a vision that was hard to buy into but it is hard in many ways to live out. As an American and merely as myself, I like to see results. I like to say point to something or even someone and say, 'this is something we saw happen.' That is not as much the case here.
However as I was reading through parts of the Hebrew Bible I came upon Abraham and was challenged by how he was promised something great in his life. He was going to father a nation. But then, as you know the story goes, he waits and waits and waits and still he does not get what he is promised. His faith, which at times wavers, is what Paul later points to as what made him righteous is what makes him such a model. Therefore I am striving to have faith that does not depend on immediate results. I pray that I would have a faith that realizes that God loves the people around me far more then I do and that in his time and in his way he will work out his good will. I have faith that if we have sought him this past week then things of eternal significance did take place and that by his grace we were used to bring his glory to this small part of Duisberg.
The challenge has been to come into a foreign culture where the faith of Christianity is not at the foundation of the world we are living and moving in. This is the first time I have been in a place where the people around me to be alive means that they are likely Muslim. Therefore I vision from the start has been to foster relationships and encourage those who live here to express the love of Christ through their ongoing ministry. This was not a vision that was hard to buy into but it is hard in many ways to live out. As an American and merely as myself, I like to see results. I like to say point to something or even someone and say, 'this is something we saw happen.' That is not as much the case here.
However as I was reading through parts of the Hebrew Bible I came upon Abraham and was challenged by how he was promised something great in his life. He was going to father a nation. But then, as you know the story goes, he waits and waits and waits and still he does not get what he is promised. His faith, which at times wavers, is what Paul later points to as what made him righteous is what makes him such a model. Therefore I am striving to have faith that does not depend on immediate results. I pray that I would have a faith that realizes that God loves the people around me far more then I do and that in his time and in his way he will work out his good will. I have faith that if we have sought him this past week then things of eternal significance did take place and that by his grace we were used to bring his glory to this small part of Duisberg.
posted by Jon at
10:38 AM
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